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TIP OF THE WEEK

There are many factors that influence when a child reaches certain developmental milestones. Use this timeline to know what to expect in the first year.

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After the tumultuous week following the double lined EPT test, I fell into a serious pre-partum depression funk that I wouldn’t be able to kick for months. It was more like a double depression, actually, as I was not only tormented by my single and pregnant status and the Jason aftermath but also felt like a hideously ugly person on the inside for feeling the way I did about being pregnant. My unborn child deserved both a mother and a father, not just a mother who was secretly praying for a miscarriage.

I just didn’t know how I was going to do it. Although I was a survivor and a living example of “that which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” the notion of surviving nine months of pregnancy, going through the terror of childbirth and caring for a newborn without a man around, scared me more than anything had before.

Sure I had amazing friends who promised to be there with me every step of the way, but the reality was that whether they were stay-at-home moms shuffling their kids around all day or single, juggling their chaotic careers with demanding dating schedules, their Los Angeles lives were full, and they probably weren’t going to be answering their phones at 2am when I needed help or staying in with me on a Friday night to help me with a colicky newborn.

Though I wasn’t showing yet, I was definitely packing on the pounds as the result of binge eating paired with pregnancy hormones, which inevitably led me to gain 20 pounds in my first trimester. Usually conservative when it came to carbs, I was gorging on huge portions of pasta, meaty sandwiches (avoiding nitrites, of course!) and bagels smeared with fatty cream cheese and might as well as put my gym membership on hold, because I stopped exercising altogether.

Though all of my close friends knew about my pregnancy and predicament, I was dreading the moment the news would leak to the outliers. This was the sort of gossip that would spread like a fire during the Santa Anas, not only tearing up my social circles in Los Angeles, but also back in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where I went to high school and with all of college friends across the country as well.